California pilot who bought Filipino children for sex gets life in prison

This is an archived article and the information in the article may be outdated. Please look at the time stamp on the story to see when it was last updated.

Please enable Javascript to watch this video

SACRAMENTO – A Sacramento-area pilot has been sentenced to life in prison after he was convicted of traveling to the Philippines to have sex with girls as young as seven years old.

The 57-year-old man, Michael Carel Clemans, was found guilty of buying children, attempted travel and travel with intent to engage in illicit sexual conduct, and conspiracy to travel with intent to engage in illicit sexual conduct.

"The salacious details of his email exchanges with his procurer are absolutely shocking," U.S. Attorney McGregor Scott said Tuesday.

Police also located more than 27,000 images of child pornography on his computer.

Pilot & Sacramento native Michael Clemans was sentenced just now to life in prison, after being convicted of traveling to the Philippines to have sex w/minors & investors found 27,000 images of child pornography. @FOX40https://t.co/7b8BqbAfUa

“i want to be able to get my photos and arrange sex with the underage girls i do not want you or me to get into trouble so we have to be very very careful”

This is just the tip of the iceberg in a series of sickening 2014 and 2015 online chats. The FBI says they were between a Bangkok-based airline pilot from Sacramento and a woman in the Philippines. The federal criminal complaint lays out more of the disturbing discussions.

Please enable Javascript to watch this video

Clemans wrote in one exchange:

“that is the reason i mentioned orphanages or runaways or abandoned girls from the typhoons i am looking for girls that are homeless that will not argue and will have no obligation but to have sex”

He was also convicted of conspiring to produce child porn and buying children.

"He sent money to that person to procure the children, requested in graphic detail the types of pornographic images he wanted of those children, those images were made and sent to him, he selected which children he wanted to travel to the Philippines to have sex with," Scott said.

The criminal complaint says the computer Clemans used to carry out the crimes was at his parents' home, where the FBI issued a search warrant for evidence.

The Department of Justice says Clemans paid $6,000 to a woman in the Philippines to take nude photos of girls so he could decide which ones he would travel to rape.

And this is just one case.

After Clemans learned his sentence, Judge John Mendez allowed him to hug his family members goodbye. Clemans' family declined to comment to KTXL.

Scott called Clemans' sentencing a huge victory in the fight against child sex trafficking and said he hopes the outcome of this case sends a message to others.

"I want to send a message to the online predators out there," Scott said. "We're those guys and we're coming every day. We're going to find you and you're going to find a nice place where Mr. Clemans has to spend the rest of his life."

The FBI says often times there are spinoff investigations when dealing with cases where thousands of child pornography images are involved. But that agency couldn’t confirm if that’s the case with the images Clemans shared. @FOX40pic.twitter.com/YHjDA5wB2L